Black in Period Films

Checkout this photos from the upcoming adaption of August Wilson's 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'.  Chicago, 1927. A recording session. Tensions rise between Ma Rainey, her ambitious horn player and the white management determined to control the uncontrollable "Mother of the Blues". The film features Viola Davis as Ma Rainey and Chadwick Boseman as Levee in his final film. Viola Davis front and center as Ma Rainey. (Credit David Lee/Netflix) Boseman with Michael Potts (Slow Drag) and Colman Domingo (as Cutler). (Credit David Lee/Netflix) The film is directed by George C. Wolfe who also did amazing work with period films 'Lackawanna Blues' (2005) and 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' (2017). I am loving how different Viola Davis is looking here. She looks like Ma Rainey here. (Credit David Lee/Netflix) Boseman with Glynn Turman (Toledo), Michael Potts (Slow Drag), and Colman Domingo (as Cutler). (Credit David Lee/Netflix) 'Ma Rainey's B...

  Jackie Ormes is known as the first Black American woman cartoonist. Jackie Ormes was born Zelda Mavin Jackson on August 1, 1911, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was born to  William Winfield Jackson,  the owner of a printing company and movie theater proprietor and Mary Brown Jackson.  Ormes's first comic strip, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, first appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier on May 1, 1937. Although it was not syndicated in the traditional sense, it was read from coast to coast. Her Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger, a single-panel cartoon would run for 11 years and lead to the creation of the Torchy Togs paper doll and the Patty-Jo doll. Both dolls were represented black girls and women as well dressed and in a positive modern light.  Jackie Ormes is a trailblazer and I am happy Google honored her in this way.  I've talked about Ormes before. Take a look!